Remembering The Future
by lwbush
Summary: Tomorrow and yesterday get their wires crossed, resulting in a better not-quite today.


Remembering the Future

By Lori Bush

Feedback: lwbush@charter.net 

  
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, etc. owns Buffy. You know the routine.

  
Summary: Tomorrow and yesterday get their wires crossed, ending in a brighter not-too-long-from-today.

Rated: PG-13

Continuity: Outlined in the story.

Author's notes: Okay, I'm not claiming to be Fluff Queen, but it seems to be all I can write anymore. Realism when dealing with characters that are already acting unrealistically is too bleak. And Harem guys – I'm sorry it took so long for me to get this out in its final form. Life, etc. and all that.

Dedication: To Shawn. Because I hope a recent event has given him a little Faith. ;D

~**~

~**~

Third Season, Senior Year – somewhere in the middle of "Faith, Hope and Trick," definitely after "Dead Man's Party." Faith has yet to show her face.

~**~

Buffy was pretty sure her life would be found in the dictionary, illustrating the entry "Suck(s)." She had, at the apex of her junior year in high school, seen a sister Slayer murdered, been accused of the crime, gotten expelled from school, sent her boyfriend to Hell, then run away from home. Leaving her friends to risk life and limb all summer protecting the town of Sunnydale – doing her sacred duty for her while she waited tables at a two-bit coffeehouse. Coming back, she'd been welcomed by a lukewarm reception at best from her friends and mother, culminating in a party where the dead had risen and been drawn to an ancient mask in her mother's bedroom – and the zombies had almost been better to deal with than above-mentioned friends and mother.

Things *were* getting better. First off, she was a senior. She'd just been readmitted to school – she had a feeling her Watcher had pulled some strings. She also had a feeling Giles would have been happier yet if those strings had been wrapped around Principal Snyder's neck, but the little toad was still around. Pity.

She and her mother had a long talk about love, sex and Slaying, and they seemed to understand each other a little better now. Although talking to her mother about sex was way off the freaky charts in her book, Joyce had assured her daughter that she'd been seventeen once, too, and was still equipped with a working set of hormones - even at her advanced age - so she understood, although didn't approve of, what had happened with Angel.

Clearing the air with Willow had actually been sort of fun.

She hadn't really talked with Xander, but he seemed okay with her, and she didn't want to push it. She always felt vaguely uncomfortable talking to him about their fights after they were over, maybe because he was quick to anger, but equally quick to forgive, so there didn't seem much point to hashing it all out when he was fine with it. Why reopen the wounds if they were healing?

She'd never had that much to say to Cordelia, anyway, so that was a moot point.

But there was still the whole "Sent my boyfriend to Hell" issue. And of course her own little foray into that lovely Hell dimension with Lilly/Chantrelle/Anne – the 'Name of the Month Club' girl. That was decidedly of the bad, although it did propel her to return home. Things were still the tiniest bit strained with her and her friends, although they were getting better every day. 

And Willow seemed to think Scott Hope liked her. Buffy couldn't decide which side of the equation that little factoid would fall on. After what had happened with Pike and Angel, she thought maybe it would be better for Scott's health if she just ran him off before he became attached. Which placed it firmly in the "depressing" column.

At first she thought the sparkly lights and spinning colors were just her mind whirling. After all, she was sitting in the courtyard of the school, deep in thought, and so it couldn't be anything more than her imagination…

Until her "imagination" grew even brighter, and spit out a little boy.

Okay – Hellmouth. This was surprising, but she'd take him to Giles, and they'd figure it out. The child was sprawled on the ground, his chest heaving, so she knew he was still alive. He appeared to be around four or five, with light brown wavy/curly hair, which he shook out as he stood up unsteadily. Then he turned a set of eyes on her  - eyes that she was sure she'd seen before in her own mirror- and surprise turned to shock when those eyes widened, and he said, "Mom?"

"Buffy? Hey, Buff!" Xander slowed his running when he saw Cordelia wasn't at the meeting place yet – he wasn't in trouble for being late this time. But from a short distance away, he could see only Buffy was there – Buffy and some small person with their back to him – and that she had a look of total amazement on her face. "Hey, Buff," he gasped out a bit breathlessly, "Who's the…"

The question went unfinished, as the child catapulted himself into Xander's arms. "Daddy!" the boy exclaimed gleefully. 

"Matty?" Xander replied, then hugging the boy closer, "Matty! What are you doing here?"

Buffy's jaw dropped a little more, although the minute she heard the name, she knew it was right. This child was indeed Matty; a major chord sounding in her heart assured her. But how did Xander know?

She looked at the two boys – the one just arrived and the one holding him. Matty looked just like Xander, except for his coloring. He had Xander's nose and a similar haircut and crooked grin, although instead of shades of dark brown as an overall theme, the child had blue-green eyes and light brown hair. And memories of things she knew for certain hadn't happened yet floated into her head, like the mist in the morning after a hard rain the day before. And like the mist, if she stared too closely at them, the memories seemed to dissipate. She shook her head as the child answered Xander's question, tuning back in.

"Junie was playing with portal spells, and she was mad at me 'cos I said I was gonna tell Aunt Willow, so she pushed me in." The boy frowned, and again Buffy saw Xander in him. "I thought she'd learned after the thing with the Wiffy Brain-bull stuff." The Slayer met Xander's eyes, and she felt her forehead scrunch in thought as she saw Xander's do the same. After a few seconds, in which neither of them could figure out what "Wiffy Brain-bull" could be, they shrugged simultaneously and turned their attentions back to the child.

"Aunt Willow?" Xander asked casually, sure somewhere in the depths of his mind he had the knowledge of the answer to his next question. "Who's Junie?"

"Daaaad," the little boy whined, in typical pre-schooler frustration. "Junie. You know… Willow Tawa Osborne. When she was born…"

"I called her Willow, Junior. Then I shortened it to Junior, and finally Junie." Xander's voice contained a hint of amazement at the fact he knew all this. In fact, he had a mental picture of the little girl in his head. "Huh," he summed it all up.

The child was stroking Xander's face. "Where's your eye patch, Daddy?" he asked, turning in Xander's embrace to look searchingly at Buffy. "And why's Mommy's tummy all flat? Did the baby fall out?"

"So, you finally made it on time, for once." Cordelia's voice managed to contain both scorn and affection at the same time, and, as he spun to face her, once again Xander wondered at his girlfriend's split personality when it came to him. Although he was grateful to her for the break in the uncomfortable silence his apparent son's questions had initiated. "Who's the rugrat?"

"Mine," Xander announced proudly.

It had happened occasionally in the past. But Buffy still gaped to see honest emotion flood Cordelia's expression. Sadness and confusion, with a pinch of jealousy mixed in. "I thought you were still... I mean, you haven't…"

"I am," he assured her. "And I haven't."

"Then … how?" Cordelia, pointing at Matty, nearly speechless. Buffy thought of this as a Kodak moment. But she felt moved to defend her husband. ~_Husband? And where the hell did *that* thought come from?_~

"Matty seems to be from the future. He fell through a portal or something."

"You're the angel lady," Matty announced matter-of-factly, jarring them out of whatever mood they'd been in. Buffy still felt a tug in her heart at hearing the name, even if that hadn't been the Angel Matty meant. Xander swallowed a snicker – Cordy as an angel _or_ in a relationship with Buffy's late boyfriend – both thoughts brought him equal incredulous amusement. And Cordelia's confusion deepened, taking on shape and size and quite possibly its own zip code. Seeing her obvious lack of understanding, the boy explained. "You know – you're all white and glow-y, and I can't hug you. Why aren't you all glow-y now?"

"Well, that made everything as clear as mud," the cheerleader grumbled. Turning to the boy and pasting on the fakest smile ever seen outside of a time-share presentation, Cordelia sing-songed in the tone of voice people who didn't know anything about children usually used with them, "I'm past due for my facial appointment, sweetie. Cordelia can't glow properly without Olga's help." Raising her eyes to her boyfriend's, the May Queen's expression turned ugly. "I'm not sure for what yet, exactly, but you are in so much trouble." Spinning on the toe of her new Manolos, she marched away, head held high.

Buffy and Xander looked at each other over Matty's head. "Giles," they announced in unison.

"Gampa!" Matty crowed, joyously. But then the child noticed the half-angry, half-flummoxed looks on the faces of the people he knew as his parents, and he knew something was wrong. He wasn't sure if he'd done whatever was wrong, so he pouted. The pout proving not quite enough comfort, he thrust his thumb into it and began to suck it noisily.

"Matty, don't suck your thumb," Xander said mechanically, watching Buffy chew her lower lip in thought. Perhaps somewhere in some future, he and Buffy were together. Although it could be another dimension – he figured if vampires were real, so were alternative dimensions. And damn if that thought didn't rekindle the banked embers of his Slayer fascination, even though, the more he thought about it, for Buffy to produce a child with him, it would indicate she had some interest in him as a male, which would certainly mean this child came from an alternative dimension. Wasn't apparently going to ever happen in *this* lifetime. Not in this universe.

The noisy sucking finally drew Buffy's attention. "Matthew Andrew Harris, what did your Aunt Dawn tell you about sucking your thumb? Stop it right now!" Frozen in shock – she wasn't sure by what, the fact she knew the child's full name or that she sounded so much like her own mother when she'd said it – Buffy never heard Matty mumble some answer about "braces." But he pulled the offending digit from his lips and simply increased the pout, throwing in a good dose of puppy eyes for insurance, and Buffy melted. "C'mere," she relented, holding out her arms. The boy leaned from Xander's embrace into hers, and she marveled at how natural it felt as he settled on her hip with his head on her shoulder. ~ _Maybe this mom thing wouldn't be so bad_. ~

Xander moved close enough she could feel his body heat through her clothes, and began stroking Matty's hair. "Maybe we can keep him, Buff. Your mom would love him and my parents…" he left the phrase hanging for a few moments. "There's no need to involve them, I guess."

She shifted, jiggling the boy a little on her hip to get more comfortable. "Xander! He's not a puppy. His parents – uhm, we're going to miss him. The us that's there. Then. Whatever…" She set her expression, not liking it, but knowing it was right. "We have to get him back." She'd never seen that pout on Xander before, but it explained where Matty had learned it. "We need to take him to Giles. He'll figure out what…"

The rest of her sentence was cut off by another sparkly portal opening, and a woman appearing to be youthful, in spite of oncoming middle-age, stepping out. "This better be… Matty! Thank the goddess I found you finally! Your parents are frantic." She looked at the woman holding Matty, and the young man beside her. "Oh! Xander, Buffy – hi! Uhm, you, uhm – could I just have him and you both forget this ever happened?" In response, the Slayer clutched Matty more tightly, and Xander protectively stepped in front of them both. "Uhm, probably not, huh?" The woman giggled nervously, in a familiar way.

"See, I'm okay, Auntie Willow. Mommy and Daddy are taking care of me here. They know I'm fine."

~_That's __Willow__?~_ The witch could see the thought pass through both of her younger friend's minds, nearly. She stifled another giggle, but couldn't hide her smile. She'd forgotten how much they were then, just like they were now. Fiercely protective and perfectly in sync with one another, although back in high school they'd never realized it.

~_Sheesh. __Willow__ grew up *nice*_.~ Xander thought to himself. She was still slim, but had filled out a bit, more round in the right girl places than she was as he knew her. She was wearing a simple high-necked top and a patterned skirt that swirled around her ankles. Her hair was more burnished copper in color, with hints of silver streaking through it, and wrapped around her head in a neat braid. Her voice seemed just a little deeper and rougher too, he noticed when she spoke again, breaking into his mental observations.

"This Mommy and Daddy aren't ready to take care of you yet, sweetie. You have to let them go, so they can become the people who *are* your Mommy and Daddy – the people who are awfully worried and scared because their favorite little boy disappeared." Older Willow held out her arms. "Buffy," she looked this version of her best friend in the eyes, and saw recognition and acceptance dawn there, "I have to take him back to you. Can I have him now?"

The Slayer nodded slowly, still unwilling to let this little piece of what she could only hope was really her future out of her arms. A normal boy – promising a normal future, with a normal husband, and… No. It was still too much to hope for. And Xander and her? Not likely! Still… She was unconsciously running her hands through Matty's silky hair as she mentally let him go. Finally, she knelt down, and set the boy on his feet. "I… it was nice to meet you, Matty," she said awkwardly.

He laughed, the sound clear and tinkling. "You already know me Mommy. You're so silly. I love you." And he threw his little arms around her neck and kissed her cheek. 

Buffy was blinking really hard, but she wasn't sure it would be enough to keep back the tears that were gathering as she kissed the top of Matty's head. "I love you too, honey." She stood up, still blinking. "Bye."

The boy walked over to Xander, who was already bending down to his level. "You be good for your Aunt Willow, Sport. And for your mom and…" he gulped as the idea blitzed him again "…me." 

The child cupped his little hands on either side of Xander's face. "You have nice eyes, Daddy. Both of them." 

Xander mimicked the motion with his much larger hands wrapping most of the way around the child's face. "You do too, son. You do too." After a few moments of just staring into them, his smile twisted to near sadness, and the teenager stood up. "Guess I'll be seeing you again in a few years, kiddo." 

Willow saw Xander look at Buffy, wonderingly. And she saw Buffy's thoughts turning in similar directions – after so many years as their friend, she could read the both of them like books, and they'd been so much more transparent back in their younger years. Suddenly her sweet fuzzy thoughts shattered. "Oh, crap," the witch swore in frustration. Looking into the startled eyes of her best friend ever, she demanded, "Anybody here see and talk to Matty except for the two of you?"

"Uh, nope," Xander assured her. Then, "No, wait – Cordy. Cordy saw him and he said something about her and Angel - or maybe _an_ angel." 

"I don't know how many times I've told those two to be discrete around the kids," Willow fumed, then cut herself off at the horrified look on Buffy's face. "Uh – forget I said that. Uh – oh, yeah. Forget..." She began rummaging around in a small pouch at her waist, made of the same fabric as her skirt. "Thank the goddess I had some Lethe's Bramble at home, since Anya hasn't replaced the stock my darling child decided to play with." Her voice dripped sarcasm at the mention of her daughter. "And now this – Junie, baby, strike three, and you're out. Of what, I'm not sure yet, but knowing you, I'd better be thinking about it." The witch mumbled all this as she fiddled with the small flower in her hand, then muttered "_incendre_," and her index finger sprouted a flame, much to the amazement of her high school friends. "Matty, grab hold of my skirt. I'd hate to go through all this then leave you behind."

She lit the flower, and began to chant. "For Buffy, Xander and Cordelia, this I char. Let Lethe's Bramble do its chore. Purge their minds of things to come, until it is time may they forget their son. Tabula rasa, tablua rasa, tabula rasa." She grinned. "So much better since I worked the crystal out of that spell. " She looked at her friends, noticing their eyes starting to glaze as she did. "Sorry – there's so much I'd like to change for you both – for me, too. But the mistakes of our past make us the people we're meant to become." She could see they had already forgotten she was there. Grabbing Matty's hand, she waved her other hand in the air. "Bye," she said faintly as they faded away. 

~**~

May, 2003

~**~

~_Okay, it's dark. And quiet. I'm dead_.~ Xander lay on the ground, his newly awakened consciousness grasping at straws. ~_It hasn't been quiet since the Slayers-In-Training started showing up. I've missed it. This must be heaven_.~ A bird twittered in the distance. ~_Hey, I didn't know heaven had whippoorwills_.~ Hesitantly he opened his one working eye, squinting at the unexpected sunlight. He heard the shuffling sound of someone crawling towards him, and then the sunlight was blotted out by a blonde head hanging barely above his. "Buffy. Definitely heaven."

"Nope," the Slayer grinned. "Been there, done that. This ain't it, Bucko."

"Can you stand?" he asked her, wondering why she'd crawled over.

"Dunno. Haven't tried. Don't feel up to it yet."

He stared through her to the sky as he contemplated that. "Me neither."

"Know what I woke up thinking about?" she asked, resting her head on his chest as she stretched out on the hard ground beside him and he wrapped his arm around her automatically.

"How long it's been since you got this much rest at one time?"

"Now that you mention it – but, no. I was thinking about Matty."

Xander could hear the smile in her voice – it matched the one that spread across his face when he thought of his once and future son.

"I remember everything, now."

"Me, too – including all the stuff that hasn't happened yet – the stuff we remembered little bits of when he came to see us." Xander realized that it hadn't been any major light switch going on – he just knew, and it felt like he always had known. "Willow's spell must have broken down."

"I'm thinkin' that when Andrew sacrificed himself to blow up the Seal, it caused the Hellmouth to surge before it closed it up – sort of made all the magic things – hell, *all* the supernatural things around it, go kerflooey."

"That'd explain Spike pledging his undying love to Drusilla again before all Hell broke loose, would it?"

"I think he finally figured out that even if I loved him, and I'm not saying I'm sure I did, we didn't have much else in common to build on," Buffy responded, only slightly sadly.

"Was that an intentional slur at his narcissism, or accidental?" Xander asked lightly, trying to wipe the sadness from her tone. He hated that she'd ever even though she loved the blond vamp, but knowing what he did about their future now, he understood the recent past better. He had memories from the days before their wedding, long talks about where the Slayer's head had been, tearful confessions from both of them, a lot of serious air clearing going on.

The Slayer replayed her words in her head, and smiled widely. "I guess it was a Freudian slip." She changed gears again, deliberately. "It's probably also why I seemed to forget how much help you'd been in the past starting around the time Faith showed up. Willow's spells always seem to go a little off – even later, don't they? Speaking of later - why do you think Matty being around the high school us made us know stuff that was going to happen?"

"That *is* going to happen," Xander corrected her. "And I think it's 'cos he's a special kid. I mean, look at who his mom is." He grinned down at her, brushing a sweaty lock of blonde hair back from her forehead.

"Hey, his dad's no slouch, either," Buffy grinned back. "Normal human, my ass. You've survived everything the active Hellmouth could throw at you – that can't possibly make you normal."

"Of course, it could have something to do with the 'healthy baby' spell Wills does on you when you're six months along. Like you said - her spells never quite work the way they were meant to."

"Yeah, there was something in that one about 'happy and abiding memories.' And there's the fact that I glowed – will glow - for four days afterwards."

"Taking the whole 'radiant mother-to-be' thing to new levels." His smile faded, and he grew serious, fairly aware of the answer to his question before he asked. "Did you – is everybody okay?"

She sobered as well. "You knew we lost Wesley before the fight was over." Xander nodded. "I looked around when I first sat up - I can't find Cho Ahn at all. I'm hoping she's just run off." Xander's future memories let him know they never did figure out what happened to the Chinese Slayer-In-Training. "Molly's bad off – we may lose her if we don't get help soon. Robin doesn't look too good, but I think Rona's taking care of him. I think she kinda likes him." She looked away. "I think Angel got his Shanshu. And Cordy and him are –" She motioned feebly to where the former vampire and ascended being were comforting each other over the loss of their teammate. 

Xander lifted her chin so she couldn't avoid his eyes. "I'm so over Cordy. How are you about Angel?" Future memories couldn't completely wipe out his self-confidence problems – hers either, apparently.

"You know how ancient that history is. Even if he's human now – she's an angel or something, but I think her bosses will let them work that out; I hope so, anyway. They've been through so much – you know, with Connor and both of them going bad, and…"

"Hey! Babble much? A simple yes or no answer will do."

"It wasn't a yes or no question," she challenged him. When she saw him visibly deflate, she caved as well. "I don't love him that way anymore – I'll always care about him, though. I want him to be happy, and from what he's said, he's been in love with Cordelia for a long time. I think she can make him happy."

"She does – she will, anyway, make him happy." He closed his eye for a moment. "And why do I know that, but I worried about whether you still had feelings for the big dead guy?"

"First – not dead anymore, remember? Second, it's going to take a while to assimilate all these new memories. We're bound to fall back into old patterns once in a while."

Xander fixed her with a thoughtful stare. "I wonder if the things we're gonna do, we'll do because we remember doing them, or if what we do, we'll do because it's meant to happen that way."

"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Buffy giggled. When Xander shrugged, but didn't respond otherwise, she went on. "Looks like I married a philosopher."

"Not yet you didn't. And we'd better get moving if we want to get from here to that point someday."

"Still not sure I can even sit up. Guess I'll have to try to find out." Buffy pushed her upper body off the ground, then turned and sat cross-legged. "Oh, owww. That hurts. And somebody stop the world, I wanna get off!"

"Head injuries are fun that way. Trust me, I have more experience than you." Xander was still stretched out on his back, looking at the sky.

"Will you still love me if I vomit?" Buffy asked, her voice strained.

"I'll see you do that and worse things in the future." He lifted his head and saw her pained grimace. "Uh, of course, that could depend on exactly *where* you vomit." 

There were a few minutes of silence, while Buffy sat with her head in her hands and tried to regain her equilibrium. Finally she was able to lift her head without too much agony. "It's passed now. Thank God."

"Need a hand, there, B?" Buffy saw her friend (hey – Faith was her friend now – whodathunkit?) standing over her, hand outstretched. She reached out, and the dark-haired girl pulled her up. "We need to get some of these guys to a hospital," Faith explained, while helping Xander up, too. "Wolfboy seems to be good, but Red has a bad wound in her throat. Giles and your ex are tired, but mostly unhurt. Uh…"

"It's okay, Faith. I know about most of the others." She saw Xander watching Oz tend to Willow. Only a few of weeks before, they'd found out Kennedy, one of the Slayers-In-Training and Willow's new girlfriend, was a mole for the First Evil. It had devastated the witch, coming so soon on the heels of Tara's death. She'd rallied, however, when her ex-boyfriend had arrived, saying he could "smell trouble." As a werewolf, Buffy wondered if there was anything Oz *couldn't* smell. Still, his presence had been good for Willow, and they'd rebuilt a strong friendship. One, she knew from her memories of things to come, that would grow into even more than they'd had back in high school, resulting eventually in the birth of Willow Tara Osborne, also called Willow, Junior, known to friends and family as "Junie."

"Hey," Buffy exclaimed, causing Xander to jump. "Why didn't we remember where Matty was when he came to see us in high school? I mean, the future us? Willow said we were panicking."

"I also remember both Wills and Matty mentioning something about Junie and what I now think was the Magic Box's entire supply of Lethe's Bramble. Although it's no big surprise that that's not one of the clearer memories."

"Huh?" Faith wondered if Buffy had hit her head harder than she first thought. And Xander really hadn't been quite right since that *thing* had poked out his eye. Maybe they were both finally losing it – surely they'd been pushed towards the edge hard enough to eventually drop over. Her apprehension level rose slightly higher when she noticed the two were holding hands – and then Buffy leaned into Xander in a way that spoke of more than friendship. She'd seen the look on Xander's face when gazing at the other Slayer before – although it had been some years ago, and not since her recent return – but she'd never seen it echoed back in Buffy's expression. These two people that had barely been on speaking terms the day before now were behaving as if they were long time lovers.

When Buffy leaned into to whisper into his ear, Xander shifted and wrapped his arm around her with easy familiarity. At her words, he couldn't help but snicker.

"You think it's too early to warn Oz and Willow to never let their daughter *near* a magic book?"

~**~


End file.
